A corporate
whistleblower, a Canadian copyright critic, and a pioneer of the open-source
movement are this year’s recipients of the annual Electronic
Frontier Foundation Pioneer Awards.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Awards honor those that make “significant and influential contributions
to the development of computer-mediated communications and to the empowerment
of individuals in using computers and the Internet,” according to EFF officials.

When news reports of illegal government spying first
surfaced in early 2005, Klein realized that he had unwittingly helped set up
the systems that were “violating the rights of millions of Americans,”
according to the EFF.

Klein turned over documents to the EFF showing how
AT&T was diverting customers' communications to the National Security
Agency. The EFF now represents AT&T customers in a class-action suit
stemming from the domestic spying.

Dr.
Michael Geist, the University of
Ottawa law
professor and popular syndicated tech columnist who led last year’s opposition
to a proposed Canadian copyright law.

Geist complained that the new law “would
mirror the DMCA with strong anti-circumvention legislation, far beyond what is
needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties,” and contained no protection
for "flexible fair dealing. No parody exception. No time shifting
exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision.
Nothing.”

Widespread support for Geist’s protest, including a petition from
more than 30,000 Facebook users, led to the tabling of the copyright
legislation by Canada’s
Industry Minister Jim Prentice.

Mitchell
Baker, Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation and the former Netscape attorney
responsible for all legal issues related to the pioneering browser’s product
development and intellectual property protection.

During that time, Mitchell
wrote the Netscape and Mozilla Public Licenses. Now known in the Mozilla
organization as the “chief lizard wrangler,” Mitchell works as general
troubleshooter, spokesperson and policy arbitrator for mozilla.org.

"The Pioneer Award
winners this year show us how one person can truly make a difference in our
digital world," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele in a statement.
"It's hard work to protect freedom, and we are so grateful for the
invaluable contributions of Mitchell, Michael, and Mark."

EFF Pioneer Award winners
were nominated by the public and chosen by a panel of judges that included: Kim
Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation; Esther
Dyson, noted blogger and founding chairman of ICANN; Mitch Kapor, president of
Kapor Enterprises; Drazen Pantic, co-director of Location One; Barbara Simons,
retired IBM researcher;
James Tyre, co-founder of the Censorware Project; and Jimmy Wales, founder of
Wikipedia.

The EFF will officially hand out the awards on
March 4at a ceremony held as part of the O’Reilly Emerging
Technology conference in San Diego. ETech this year will
also feature a keynote by MP3.com and Linspire founder Micahel Robertson
titled, “What to Expect When You're Expecting...To Be Sued.”